433 Jaguar
In front of Alex was a small flying boat that could house preferably only one person at a time, but could fit 3 people if needed. The boat was white in color with a slight purple hue along the outlines.
The design of the boat itself was quite simple.
It was about a meter wide, 2 meters long, and barely half a meter high. It had a small compartment on the front where one could place True Spirit stones inside it to make it run on its own.
The boat was something Alex had gotten after Zexi's death. It was one of the things inside Zexi's storage bag along with everything else he gained.
Being a True rank artifact, Alex couldn't really refine it at all. However, he had noticed that even without refining, the boat flew way faster than if he did normally.
He couldn't imagine how fast the boat would be if he really did manage to refine it once he reached the True realms, however, that would be something he would think about when the time came.
He quickly jumped onto the hovering boat and checked the True spirit stones in the front compartment. Once he made sure the spirit stones had Qi in them, he closed the compartment and sat on the boat.
The boat didn't have any control equipment and entirely relied on the user to control it through their Qi.
Alex put his Qi into the compartment and suddenly, the boat activated and started moving forward.
The boat did nothing but go forward, and since the boat was angled a little off from the north, it started speeding towards there.
"Not there," Alex thought as he slightly pushed the front of the boat from the side using his Qi to straighten its path.
The boat was incredibly fast and moved through the air faster than the sect's giant ship or Ma Rong's own flying artifact.
"I guess you really can't argue that a royal has some of the best stuff," Alex thought. He wouldn't argue if someone came and said that this was a Heaven-grade artifact, even though he knew it was just an earth-grade artifact.
The feeling Alex felt had disappeared by now. But that didn't do anything to make him feel better. In fact, that was the exact same thing that happened last time as well.
The feelings would disappear for a few minutes, then come back up stronger. It would repeat a few times and increase to the point that it would be physically uncomfortable for Alex.
He felt like it was halfway there by now. He flew up the hill and went past another set of the small jungle as he made his way as far north as he could.
Even then, he couldn't get rid of that feeling.
In the veil of the night, he flew for nearly 3 hours when the feeling reached its peak.
By now he was very far away, but that wasn't consoling at all. The beast side had a Saint Beast. If it wanted, it could probably reach him in a third of the time it took him to fly this far away.
He had crossed villages by now, but his fear did not drop in the slightest.
And that was not without reason as he soon felt an enormous aura from many kilometers away. Even at a distance so far away, he could feel the aura of the saint realm.
"Shit! Saint realm is truly terrifying. But… why do I sense two different auras?"
* * * * *
Half an hour earlier.
A massive nearly 3 meters tall and 5 meters long Jaguar flew through the night sky, fully hidden under its darkness.
The black jaguar was flying at incredible speed and headed north while the minor beasts started searching for things to attack mindlessly.
Most of them had all followed behind it. Where ever the Jaguar went, they went as well.
"Just when will these mindless children grow? Just when will the wound upon this land heal?" the beast asked itself as it flew towards Alex's location.
"I already failed the first time when those humans stood in my way. If I could kill them, I would have already found him by now," the Jaguar lamented.
"And the second time did not bore any fruit as I couldn't locate him, to begin with."
"This time, however, I will make sure to get him and return back," the Jaguar said.
As one of the faster types of beasts, it wouldn't even take half an hour to reach where Alex had already gone to.
It flew without stops for the next half an hour and finally felt that the target was within grasp. It was excited.
"Friend, would you mind stopping for a little bit," A voice suddenly appeared in the Jaguar's mind.
"Yes, friend. We would like it if you could stop for a little chat," Another voice said.
The Jaguar suddenly stopped. The voices had just spoken inside his head, which meant the speaker must have a Saint Realm cultivation base.
The Jaguar suddenly sent out its own Spiritual sense and noticed the two people about a few kilometers away.
"It's you two. How are you two here?" the Jaguar asked.
"Oh, how can we say? I guess we can call it fate," one of the people said.
"Fate… hah! What utter crap," the Jaguar said and immediately sent his spiritual sense all over himself.
"I see… I didn't realize that there was an imprint on me. My age must be catching up to me. I guess I will need to hurry up or I won't get a proper chance to enter the Immortal Realm," the Jaguar said to itself.
The imprint on its body immediately disappeared as if it was never there. The two men standing a kilometer away frowned.
"This seems… troublesome, brother Feng," a red-haired male with short hair and a clean face said. He had an ordinary-looking body and attire, but his attitude and ability were anything but ordinary.
"Truly does seem that way, brother Yang. Unfortunately, we don't have the highness to help us this day," the man named Feng said. Feng had long jet black hair and a thin face which was contrasted by his fat mustache.
"Guess we will have to give our all then," the man named Yang said and flared out his cultivation base, getting ready to fight.
"I guess we do," Fend said and flared out his cultivation base too.
Together, their cultivation base was enough to scare anyone in the entire empire. However, the Jaguar wasn't fazed at all.
The only thing on its face was a frown from not being able to go to where Alex was.
"Humans, I don't wish to harm you, so please let me go do my duty," the Jaguar said.
"We followed you all the way from the capital, friend. We can't leave empty-handed. At the very least we need answers," Yang said with a menacing smile on his face.
"Sigh, I guess being a pacifist really does hurt one from time to time," Jaguar said and suddenly released its cultivation base too.
The two men frowned at first seeing the Jaguar release its cultivation base. They believed the Jaguar was getting ready to fight. However, the Jaguar didn't stop.
Its cultivation base kept on growing more and more, and the frown on the two men's faces slowly turned into fear. Soon, the fear disappeared too and it changed into despair.
Finally, the Jaguar stopped releasing its cultivation base and slowly walked towards the two men with its overwhelming aura.
"Do you still wish to stop me, humans?" it asked.
The two men started fearing for their life now. For all of their nearly thousand-year-long life, they hadn't met anyone or anything with this high of a cultivation base.
"N-no, no," the Yang named man started blurting out on his own. The man named Feng couldn't even speak.
"Leave!" the Jaguar ordered.
"Y-Yes, senior," Yang said and disappeared from there. Feng too disappeared within a second after Yang.
"Finally, no more disturbances," the Jaguar said and was about to follow Alex when it realized it could no longer locate him at all.
"NO! It can't be over already," it said. It looked back and saw the hundreds of thousands of beasts rushing back into the forest.
"I'm sure he's around somewhere ahead of me. I just need to search for him," it said and flew further ahead searching for Alex, but no matter how hard it did, it would never locate something it hadn't seen before. It saw thousands of humans and beasts alike, but it couldn't see the target at all.
"Shit! Today was a failure too. I will have to wait another month again," the Jaguar said.
"I hope that damned puma had more luck than me," the Jaguar said and turned around.
Once again, it had failed. It hated the humans for stopping it on both times it could locate its target.
It lamented the fact that it could not find its target this month, but next month, it promised on its master's grave to find him for sure.
* * * * * *
The aura of the two human cultivators that Alex had mistaken as the aura of the Jaguar had disappeared far away behind him.
He had moved too far away to feel that aura at all now.
In the next 2 minutes, the feelings he was feeling disappeared too. 'Is it okay now?' he wondered and flew towards a spot of light in the night.
It turned out to be a small village in the mountains. Alex dropped near there and took in his boat. Then he walked into the village and meshed with the people there.
He acted like he was a cultivator from far away and was only resting. He gave the villagers a few pills in exchange for letting him stay with them for a bit.
A spiritual sense came and went, and Alex was left in sweats. Thankfully the owner of that sense never came looking for him.
So, he stayed in the village for half an hour more and finally felt like it was time to leave.
"Thank you for your hospitality, senior. I will leave now," Alex said to the village chief.
"No, no, lord Cultivator. It is our village's honor that a person such as you came here at all," the chief said.
Alex thanked them again and walked out of the village. It was dead in the night and the sky was cloudy.
'Is it going to rain?' he wondered. He wouldn't mind a bit of rain. Rather, he wanted some.
He quickly got on the boat and started flying towards where he assumed his sister and the caravan would be by now.
He didn't have an accurate map of the land, so he could only base where he was on some crude information he had about the general area of the lands.
"So… that direction?" he guessed as he looked towards a certain direction and flew away in his boat.
